Community Literacy of Ontario - Our Voice newsletter - June 2006 issue

Community Literacy of Ontario

Our Voice

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What’s Up with the Essential Skills?

Understanding the Essential Skills

Here in Ontario it has become increasingly important to understand the Essential Skills. They will form, along with the current LBS levels, a part of the new framework for learner skill attainment.

Essential Skills are the skills needed for work, learning and life. They provide the foundation for learning all other skills. Through extensive research, the Government of Canada and other national and international agencies have identified nine Essential Skills: Reading Text; Document Use; Numeracy; Writing; Oral Communication; Working with Others; Continuous Learning; Thinking Skills; and Computer Use. These skills are used in nearly every occupation and throughout daily life in different ways and at different levels of complexity.

The Essential Skills have many uses including:

  • Helping adults learn about the skills needed in various
    occupations
  • Helping adults to investigate career options
  • Providing educators with useful training tools

See: http://srv108.services.gc.ca/english/general/
Understanding_ES_e.shtml

Essential Skills Profiles

Essential Skills profiles describe how each of the nine Essential Skills are used by workers in a particular occupation. Over the past several years, the Government of Canada has conducted research examining the skills people use at work. From this research and through interviews with workers, managers, practitioners and leading researchers, close to 200 Essential Skills profiles have been developed for various occupations of the National Occupational Classifications. To date, profiles have been completed for all occupations requiring a high school education or less.

See: http://srv108.services.gc.ca/english/general/
ES_Profiles_e.shtml